Page 18 of A Duke in Disguise
Ash’s stomach clenched in fear. “Let me understand,” he said, trying to sound calm. “When this book goes to press, no matter how clandestinely you mean to advertise it, there is at least one stranger who knows that you’re the publisher.”
“True, but it’s in her best interest to keep mum, otherwise she could be in hot water.”
“No,” Ash said patiently, “she will not be. Because you don’t know who she is. This is unwise, Verity.” She looked up sharply at his use of her first name.
“I’ve already paid her, and now I can’t afford not to go to press with the book.”
“Just like your brother,” he said. “I don’t know why my two closest friends need to play fast and loose with their safety like this. I’ve come to expect as much from Nate, but I hoped you knew better.” The thought of losing them the way he had lost everyone else made his blood chill and he couldn’t stand the thought of it for one moment longer. He rose to his feet, needing to get out of this room. “Good night, Plum.” He made his way towards the door and glanced at her over his shoulder. “I trust you’re sober enough to make it up the stairs on your own?”
She nodded but said nothing, only looking up at him with wide eyes. In the shadows, he could see an expression of confused hurt on her face. That wouldn’t do.
“Oh, damn it, Plum. Come here.” But even as he spoke, he was already crossing the room, going to her, taking her hand, pulling her to her feet. He couldn’t say that he had a plan. He knew only that he couldn’t part from her with anything like coldness or resentment between them. He squeezed her hands. “I just... I can’t lose you, Plum.”
He must have said the wrong words, or the right ones, because she was on her toes, her lips brushing over his, her hands on his shoulders. His hands somehow found the small of her back, the nape of her neck. Ash tried to act like a man who had some semblance of sangfroid, rather than one who was being offered a ladle of water after crossing an endless desert. Or maybe he was being offered a lit fuse, an unexploded mortar shell, a disaster waiting to happen. One or the other. His mind was too consumed with the feel of Verity’s mouth moving against his to figure it out. She tasted of wine and smelled of hair soap and ink, and her lips were soft and searching.
Her kisses changed from exploratory assays into something downright purposeful as she licked along his bottom lip. He clamped his hands onto her hips, feeling the sharpness of her hipbone and the softness beyond. She was kissing him in earnest now, kissing him as comprehensively and unyieldingly as she did everything else in life. She steered him towards the sofa and pushed him down. He went willingly—was there a word that meant more thanwillingly? He did not know and his mind wasn’t forming thoughts now anyway—and she straddled his lap.
They fit together as if this were not their first kiss but their hundredth, their thousandth, as if they had been doing this all along. As if they were gears from the same clock, coming together finally, finally. As if this was what they were meant to do. This was what he had wanted for years, what he had dreaded too. This was it, the end of their precarious balancing act, the beginning of his losing her.
He moved a hand to her cheek and pulled back. “Wait.”
“Why?” she asked, her eyes unfocused.
“I need a moment to get my bearings.”
She smiled, a lazy twist of one side of her mouth. “You’re on my sofa, between my thighs.”
She was wrong. He was in a new world, an uncharted sea where Verity Plum said that sort of thing to him. “I can’t. We know how this will end, and I can’t stand the thought of it.”
Eyes narrowed, she got to her feet and glared down at him. She wasn’t angry, just vexed and working herself up to a lather; this was a look he knew well. He had the wonderful feeling that she was about to dress him down and explain why he was being an idiot. He’d agree, and then they’d ruin everything that mattered to him. He would know with every kiss and every caress that he was one step closer to losing her, one step closer to being utterly adrift in the world.
Chapter Six
They were interrupted by the sound of the front door swinging open.
“Good God,” came Nate’s voice, nearly a shout. “What the devil happened in this shop?”
Ash watched the relief wash over Verity’s face at the realization that her brother had returned safely. He got to his feet and squeezed her hand. “And why the hell is that cat in the house?” Nate shouted.
“I’ll go with you,” he said. “But hold still.” Her hair had come loose when he had touched her. “Hold still.” He lifted the errant lock and tried to coax it in the general direction of the rest of Verity’s coiffure, fastening it with a hairpin that he fished out of his pocket. “There,” he said, surveying his handiwork. She no longer looked like he had been pawing at her, at least. Her cheeks flushed, as if she knew the direction of his thoughts, and she looked hastily away.
Nate and Charlie were in the shop, a single satchel on the floor between them. Charlie looked merely tired while Nate had the look of a man who hadn’t slept in days.
“What happened here?” Nate asked, gesturing at the shelves Ash and Verity had spent several mornings setting to rights.
“The redcoats tossed the place and we put everything back as best as we could,” Verity said tersely.
Charlie groaned and buried his face in his hands, but Nate seemed unsurprised. “Well, I suppose it was bound to happen. Sorry it was when I wasn’t here to help, Verity.”
Ash watched Verity. She opened her mouth and snapped it shut.
“I’m going to find something to eat,” Charlie cut in. “We can quarrel in the kitchen as well as we can in the shop.”
They settled around the plain deal table that had been in the kitchen since long before Ash first set foot in the place. Charlie ducked into the larder, emerging with his arms full of bread, cheese, and apples. He placed half the food in front of Nate. “Eat.”
From his seat beside Verity, Ash could see her twist the fabric of her skirt in her hands. “I think you’ve got to go to America,” she blurted out.
“Not happening,” Nate said, breaking a piece of bread into crumbs. “We’re close to a victory. You should have seen them. It wasn’t your ordinary hanging. The crowd wasn’t for it. There was no cheering after the hangman showed Brandreth’s head to the crowd. People aren’t going to take this sitting down.”
